EducationNationalVOLUME 19 ISSUE # 24

The importance of mother tongue education

It was an unexpected response from the school administrator when Naveed Asghar and his wife visited the area school for the admission of their son. They were living in a Melbourne (Australia) locality at that time. When the couple was discussing the admission process in Punjabi, their mother tongue, the school administrator asked them if their four-year-old child was fluent in speaking his mother tongue. Getting an answer in the negative, she advised the couple to take their son home and let him learn his mother tongue first.

She advised them to converse with their child all day-to-day matters in their mother tongue during the next six months, so that he gains good command of the Punjabi language. The time duration might be increased for making the child well-versed in his mother tongue, the administrator told the couple.

Finding the couple confused, the administrator-cum-educator explained that it was a common belief among educationists and language experts that the mother tongue is vital in children’s cognitive development as well as reasonable thinking and emotional balance. Being fluent in the mother tongue, alternatively known as the native language, benefits the child in numerous ways. It connects them to their culture and helps in learning other languages.

Various research studies show that children across the developing world are learning very little in school, a reality that can be linked to teaching that is in a language they do not fully understand. It is a practice that leads to limited or non-existent learning and acquisition of knowledge and skills, alienating experiences, and high drop-out and repetition rates.

Educationists stress that for improving the quality of education, language policies must take account of mother-tongue learning. Models of education, which ignore mother tongue in early years, may prove unproductive and ineffective, having a negative effect on children’s learning. Mother-tongue education, at least in early years, can enable teachers to teach and learners to learn more effectively. An oft-quoted sentence of great Nelson Mandela is, “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart”.

In Pakistan, the negative impact of imparting education in languages other than mother tongue is quite visible. The fifth edition of the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) showed that despite being in school, Pakistani children were not learning. The learning levels are actually falling, and they are especially low for girls, said the report.

According to the report, less than 40% of grade-five girls could read or do math of grade two level. The decline in learning levels may be attributed to many problems, and one of them is imparting lessons in a language other than their mother tongue. Last month, the International Mother Language Day, celebrated globally under the auspices of the United Nations (UN), stressed that the language of instruction could adversely affect children’s learning if the preferred language was not their mother tongue.

Some of the issues, highlighted by the educationists on the day, include: a) Children in rural locations are much more likely to drop out of school unless they can learn in their first language. b) In all settings, children perform worse across the curriculum when their first language is not used to teach. c) Children do badly in a national or an international language which is used for teaching, if they do not use it at home. d) Children never become fully literate if they do not already know the language of literacy well. e) Children may never make it into secondary education if they struggle with language in primary school, even though by their teens their ability to learn advanced second language might be greater. f) Groups, who do not have easy access to dominant languages, will continue to see their interests as not being served by the state. g) If school assessments are conducted in a language that a child does not understand well, it will be impossible to get a picture of their real capacities and to judge school.

The issue is not Pakistan-specific. According to Unesco, 40% of people have no access to education in a language they understand, and 617 million children and adolescents do not achieve minimum proficiency levels in reading. In Pakistan, about 74 languages are spoken. Besides Urdu, the national language, major provincial languages are Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto and Balochi. Some other familiar languages include Seraiki (Southern Punjab), Brahui (Central and Central East Balochistan), Shina (Gilgit-Baltistan), Kashmiri (Azad Kashmir) and Hindko (a part of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa).

However, Urdu serves as lingua franca in the country. Although in remote rural areas, a majority is unable to read or write in Urdu, it is understood easily across the country to the extent of communication. The medium of education is mainly Urdu in public educational institutions up to almost 12 years of education. In private schools, English is used from the very beginning. At the graduate level and beyond, English remains the main medium, both in natural and social sciences. Local languages and mother tongues are hardly taught formally at any stage. If the expert opinion of those advocating imparting of education in the mother tongue is given any weightage, policymakers in Pakistan would have to rethink their policies, and provide for arrangements to impart education to the children in their mother tongue, at least at the primary level.

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